1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to electronic devices and a user interface and input method, and more particularly to a user interface and method for predictive content entry within an electronic device that features a hardware keypad, handwriting input with a pen, or onscreen keyboard.
2. Description of the Related Art
Content entry in handheld electronic devices (such as cellular telephones phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), wireless messaging devices, web pads, television set top boxes, and desktop personal computers, and the like) for such tasks as message creation, telephone book entry creation typically uses either a full QWERTY keyboard or a numeric telephone keypad to input text. Many devices having numeric telephone keypads use multi-tap entry methods, in which multiple letters are assigned to a single key, and that key is pressed multiple times to select the desired letter, number, or other desired content. This can be time consuming and tedious. As the complexity of the functionality and utility of portable electronic devices increases, users of such devices desire simpler methods of content entry such as are available in intelligent keypad text entry systems. Some intelligent keypad text entry methods provide a method for a user to press only one key per letter. Input speed, accuracy, and overall usability can be increased as the system predicts the most likely word associated with a particular sequence of key presses.
Intelligent keypad text entry systems can enable users to easily create text messages on a handheld electronic device such as a cellular telephone, wireless messaging device, and the like. Such systems enable users to participate in instant messaging dialogues, and perform wireless transactions with ease. Such systems are further well suited for use with devices that have limited keypads like a standard television remote control, enabling text input to a television set top box for web surfing and e-commerce applications.
Intelligent text entry systems available for telephone keypads today provide word prediction by disambiguating numeric key sequences into most likely character combinations including the display of alternative word choices for a given key press or presses. Predictive text input for electronic devices such as handheld devices with numeric keypads has evolved to support the prediction of complete words, word combinations and phrases. This gives the user the possibility of entering complete words and phrases faster and more convenient. On the other hand, the potential of such a system to create wrong predictions that lead to whole sentences that are not desired by users is an issue that needs to be resolved at the user interface level. It is desirable for the user to have full control and feedback of the prediction process in an intuitive, fast fashion that requires minimal effort.